A hood hinge of the type claimed here is known from DE 10 2010 023 283 A1. The hood hinge has a function in the event of a collision of the motor vehicle with a pedestrian. This is because it permits raising of the front hood from a starting position into a cushioning position for the pedestrian, for example, to moderate the force of the impact of the pedestrian by the front hood. For this purpose, the hood hinge is typically a component of a pedestrian protection system of the motor vehicle, which is activated, for example, via sensorial recognition of an imminent collision or an already occurring collision with a pedestrian, and then causes raising of the front hood, for example, by an actuator.
In the development or refinement of such pedestrian protection systems, efforts have been made to cause the extension of the front hood into the cushioning position for the pedestrian as rapidly as possible with respect to time. However, this is frequently made more difficult in that in the end phase of the extension procedure, when a limiting element which limits the extension movement becomes active, the front hood is excited into oscillations because of its mass inertia and the kinetic energy acting during the extension procedure. The desired cushioning position is then only reached after an oscillation-related time delay.